Consciousness

[DBT]

Don't be silly. Of course it is. You don't have actual objects like trees and animals and cars and people, the things of the world, inside you head...you have brain generated mental representations of these things in the form of conscious imagery and sensation.

Consciousness is an awareness of the representation of the tree.

Awareness is inseparable from consciousness. To be aware one (the brain) must necessarily be conscious. The tree you see is a conscious representation of the actual tree that exists independently of whether your brain is representing it in conscious form. You experience a conscious mental representation of a tree.

Consciousness is not any kind of representation itself. It is the awareness, the experiencing of representations.

Consciousness is not a single thing, it is composed of many features and attributes. If you lose your sight, shut your eyes or whatever, you may still still conscious of the tree through your sense of touch, smell or hearing, the tree is being represented other consciously aware sensory forms, tactile imagery, odour, etc.

 

[untermensche]

Consciousness is an awareness of the representation of the tree.

Awareness is inseparable from consciousness. To be aware one (the brain) must necessarily be conscious. The tree you see is a conscious representation of the actual tree that exists independently of whether your brain is representing it in conscious form. You experience a conscious mental representation of a tree.

You have not made any clarification.

Yes, the tree we experience is a representation.

But consciousness is being aware of the representation, not the representation.

The representation is one thing. The awareness of the representation is something else entirely.

That which is aware of the representation of the tree is also that which is aware of all things.

Consciousness is not tied to the representation of the tree in any way. The representation of the tree is just one of many things it can be aware of.

Consciousness is not any kind of representation itself. It is the awareness, the experiencing of representations.

Consciousness is not a single thing, it is composed of many features and attributes. If you lose your sight, shut your eyes or whatever, you may still still conscious of the tree through your sense of touch, smell or hearing, the tree is being represented other consciously aware sensory forms, tactile imagery, odour, etc.

Consciousness is a single entity.

That which is aware of the tree is also that which is aware of thoughts, that which aware of the bodies position.

The same thing aware of all things.

Consciousness. A single entity.

No wonder you are having so much trouble.

You think the representations created by the brain and that which is aware of the representations are the same thing.

One could not be more lost.

 

[George S]

[YOUTUBE]W5kikQ2tjhQ[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Speakpigeon]

Don't be silly. Of course it is. You don't have actual objects like trees and animals and cars and people, the things of the world, inside you head...you have brain generated mental representations of these things in the form of conscious imagery and sensation.

Consciousness is an awareness of the representation of the tree.

It is an experiencing of the representation. It is that which experiences all representations made by the brain.

Consciousness is not any kind of representation itself. It is the awareness, the experiencing of representations.

Absolutely correct.

EB

 

[fromderinside]

OK. After the two of you finish your refrain what have you said. Consciousness is awareness? What is consciousness one must ask. My reply is that consciousness is most likely a historical articulation of the operable order of all awarenesses attached/associated to to the being at any moment in time. However, it need not be articulation if that isn't available. It can also be a being's readiness to act out a certain set of actions in response to the sorted awarenesses. In other words it is an objectified state in the living process of a social being, in our case that of a human.

A little experiment. Try to detach articulation from what you think is your consciousness. Think without words or pictorial representations. Does thinking stop? Is it difficult to execute what , it it were articulated, you would do if you had left the articulation on?

 

[untermensche]

Just because thinking needs things to think about does not make that which experiences the thoughts the same thing as the thoughts themselves.

The thoughts are one thing.

The awareness of them another.

If there are no thoughts the awareness is still there.

It just isn't aware of any thoughts, but could be aware of other things.

 

[untermensche]

Consciousness is an awareness of the representation of the tree.

It is an experiencing of the representation. It is that which experiences all representations made by the brain.

Consciousness is not any kind of representation itself. It is the awareness, the experiencing of representations.

Absolutely correct.

EB

The so-called neuro-scientists don't even know what they are looking for in terms of consciousness.

It is a joke.

 

[Juma]

Awareness is inseparable from consciousness. To be aware one (the brain) must necessarily be conscious. The tree you see is a conscious representation of the actual tree that exists independently of whether your brain is representing it in conscious form. You experience a conscious mental representation of a tree.

You have not made any clarification.

Yes, the tree we experience is a representation.

But consciousness is being aware of the representation, not the representation.

The representation is one thing. The awareness of the representation is something else entirely.

That which is aware of the representation of the tree is also that which is aware of all things.

Consciousness is not tied to the representation of the tree in any way. The representation of the tree is just one of many things it can be aware of.

Consciousness is not any kind of representation itself. It is the awareness, the experiencing of representations.

Consciousness is not a single thing, it is composed of many features and attributes. If you lose your sight, shut your eyes or whatever, you may still still conscious of the tree through your sense of touch, smell or hearing, the tree is being represented other consciously aware sensory forms, tactile imagery, odour, etc.

Consciousness is a single entity.

That which is aware of the tree is also that which is aware of thoughts, that which aware of the bodies position.

The same thing aware of all things.

Consciousness. A single entity.

No wonder you are having so much trouble.

You think the representations created by the brain and that which is aware of the representations are the same thing.

One could not be more lost.

The truth is that what youre brain are working with is the representations and it is the interplay of these representations that are "your awareness"

 

[untermensche]

The truth is that what youre brain are working with is the representations and it is the interplay of these representations that are "your awareness"

I don't agree.

I think a lot can happen below the level of awareness.

Thoughts can just arise from nowhere. They are of course not coming from nowhere but are generated in some way by the brain.

But thoughts can also be controlled and directed towards some end. We punish people more severely for premeditated murder.

There is a measure of voluntary control.

Just as there is a measure of voluntary control of movement.

 

[ryan]

OK. After the two of you finish your refrain what have you said. Consciousness is awareness? What is consciousness one must ask. My reply is that consciousness is most likely a historical articulation of the operable order of all awarenesses attached/associated to to the being at any moment in time. However, it need not be articulation if that isn't available. It can also be a being's readiness to act out a certain set of actions in response to the sorted awarenesses. In other words it is an objectified state in the living process of a social being, in our case that of a human.

A little experiment. Try to detach articulation from what you think is your consciousness. Think without words or pictorial representations. Does thinking stop? Is it difficult to execute what , it it were articulated, you would do if you had left the articulation on?

Forget "consciousness", let's discuss qualia. Anyone with 5 senses are more certain about the existence of their qualia than anything else.

Some say it's a property of matter/energy, okay; I agree. But it is not a physical property of matter/energy since we have already found the basic properties of matter which are just multiplied throughout the universe. So that leaves out the property of the brain that we call qualia.

Because there is a correlation between qualia and brain matter/energy, it could be argued that qualia is an intrinsic property of matter, but a nonphysical one. But remember, by "nonphysical" I mean parallelism or possibly epiphenomenalism (2 kinds of dualism).

 

[ryan]

The truth is that what youre brain are working with is the representations and it is the interplay of these representations that are "your awareness"

I don't agree.

I think a lot can happen below the level of awareness.

Thoughts can just arise from nowhere. They are of course not coming from nowhere but are generated in some way by the brain.

But thoughts can also be controlled and directed towards some end. We punish people more severely for premeditated murder.

There is a measure of voluntary control.

Just as there is a measure of voluntary control of movement.

But if thoughts are generated by the brain, and brains follow the laws of physics, then don't our thoughts also follow the laws of physics and not some other volition? [The good news is that the laws of physics have certain degrees of real freedom, so our thoughts would then also be partly free (obviously because I can't choose between choices/thoughts that are not generated by my brain, but I choose between what is physically generated and presented by my brain)]

 

[untermensche]

I don't agree.

I think a lot can happen below the level of awareness.

Thoughts can just arise from nowhere. They are of course not coming from nowhere but are generated in some way by the brain.

But thoughts can also be controlled and directed towards some end. We punish people more severely for premeditated murder.

There is a measure of voluntary control.

Just as there is a measure of voluntary control of movement.

But if thoughts are generated by the brain, and brains follow the laws of physics, then don't our thoughts also follow the laws of physics and not some other volition? [The good news is that the laws of physics have certain degrees of real freedom, so our thoughts would then also be partly free (obviously because I can't choose between choices/thoughts that are not generated by my brain, but I choose between what is physically generated and presented by my brain)]

Whatever laws it follows they allow consciousness to choose a goal and direct thoughts towards some end.

No laws prevent it from doing that, clearly.

 

[ryan]

But if thoughts are generated by the brain, and brains follow the laws of physics, then don't our thoughts also follow the laws of physics and not some other volition? [The good news is that the laws of physics have certain degrees of real freedom, so our thoughts would then also be partly free (obviously because I can't choose between choices/thoughts that are not generated by my brain, but I choose between what is physically generated and presented by my brain)]

Whatever laws it follows they allow consciousness to choose a goal and direct thoughts towards some end.

No laws prevent it from doing that, clearly.

Maybe, but what I am really trying to say is that without quantum mechanics, your choices are all fixed by laws that will only allow one course of action, not just for you bit for the whole universe. That would leave free will irrelevant with only an illusion of control.

 

[untermensche]

Whatever laws it follows they allow consciousness to choose a goal and direct thoughts towards some end.

No laws prevent it from doing that, clearly.

Maybe, but what I am really trying to say is that without quantum mechanics, your choices are all fixed by laws that will only allow one course of action, not just for you bit for the whole universe. That would leave free will irrelevant with only an awareness of an illusion of control.

We are light years from being able to reduce experience to present understandings of physics.

It does no good making claims about what is and is not possible. These kinds of claims are not worth anything.

What allows the artificial world created by humans is planning. Deliberately directing thought towards specific goals.

Not seeing what is all around us will not lead to understandings.

 

[DBT]

Awareness is inseparable from consciousness. To be aware one (the brain) must necessarily be conscious. The tree you see is a conscious representation of the actual tree that exists independently of whether your brain is representing it in conscious form. You experience a conscious mental representation of a tree.

You have not made any clarification.

Yes, the tree we experience is a representation.

But consciousness is being aware of the representation, not the representation.

The representation is one thing. The awareness of the representation is something else entirely.

That which is aware of the representation of the tree is also that which is aware of all things.

Consciousness is not tied to the representation of the tree in any way. The representation of the tree is just one of many things it can be aware of.

Consciousness is not any kind of representation itself. It is the awareness, the experiencing of representations.

Consciousness is not a single thing, it is composed of many features and attributes. If you lose your sight, shut your eyes or whatever, you may still still conscious of the tree through your sense of touch, smell or hearing, the tree is being represented other consciously aware sensory forms, tactile imagery, odour, etc.

Consciousness is a single entity.

That which is aware of the tree is also that which is aware of thoughts, that which aware of the bodies position.

The same thing aware of all things.

Consciousness. A single entity.

No wonder you are having so much trouble.

You think the representations created by the brain and that which is aware of the representations are the same thing.

One could not be more lost.

Sorry, but you don't have a clue. That is the sad fact of it.

Try to separate being aware of a tree from what you are seeing: the tree. You cannot. What you are saying is utter nonsense.

Then your claim that consciousness is a single thing when it is clear that what we call consciousness is comprised of many distinct attributes, sensory information: vision, hearing, etc, emotions, thoughts etc, including unconscious processing;


''Consciousness, as William James pointed out, is not a thing, but a process or stream that is changing on a time scale of fractions of seconds (1). As he emphasized, a fundamental aspect of the stream of consciousness is that it is highly unified or integrated. Integration is a property shared by every conscious experience irrespective of its specific content: Each conscious state comprises a single "scene" that cannot be decomposed into independent components (5). Integration is best appreciated by considering the impossibility of conceiving of a conscious scene that is not integrated, that is, one which is not experienced from a single point of view. A striking demonstration is given by split-brain patients performing a spatial memory task in which two independent sequences of visuospatial positions were presented, one to the left and one to the right hemisphere. In these patients, each hemisphere perceived a separate, simple visual problem and the subjects were able to solve the double task well. Normal subjects could not treat the two independent visual sequences as independent, parallel tasks. Instead, they combined the visual information into a single conscious scene and into a single, large problem that was much more difficult to solve.''

unconscious information processing;
"A lot of the early work in this field was on conscious decision making, but most of the decisions you make aren't based on conscious reasoning," says Pouget. "You don't consciously decide to stop at a red light or steer around an obstacle in the road. Once we started looking at the decisions our brains make without our knowledge, we found that they almost always reach the right decision, given the information they had to work with."

''Subjects in this test performed exactly as if their brains were subconsciously gathering information before reaching a confidence threshold, which was then reported to the conscious mind as a definite, sure answer. The subjects, however, were never aware of the complex computations going on, instead they simply "realized" suddenly that the dots were moving in one direction or another. The characteristics of the underlying computation fit with Pouget's extensive earlier work that suggested the human brain is wired naturally to perform calculations of this kind.''

 

[ryan]

Then your claim that consciousness is a single thing when it is clear that what we call consciousness is comprised of many distinct attributes, sensory information: vision, hearing, etc, emotions, thoughts etc, including unconscious processing;


''Consciousness, as William James pointed out, is not a thing, but a process or stream that is changing on a time scale of fractions of seconds (1). As he emphasized, a fundamental aspect of the stream of consciousness is that it is highly unified or integrated. Integration is a property shared by every conscious experience irrespective of its specific content: Each conscious state comprises a single "scene" that cannot be decomposed into independent components (5). Integration is best appreciated by considering the impossibility of conceiving of a conscious scene that is not integrated, that is, one which is not experienced from a single point of view. A striking demonstration is given by split-brain patients performing a spatial memory task in which two independent sequences of visuospatial positions were presented, one to the left and one to the right hemisphere. In these patients, each hemisphere perceived a separate, simple visual problem and the subjects were able to solve the double task well. Normal subjects could not treat the two independent visual sequences as independent, parallel tasks. Instead, they combined the visual information into a single conscious scene and into a single, large problem that was much more difficult to solve.''

I am quite surprised that you would post this quote because the writer seems to have misused "process" and goes on to explain how the consciousness "cannot be decomposed". From the quote you posted, "Each conscious state comprises a single 'scene' that cannot be decomposed into independent components" consciousness is something that exists as a whole. The stream of consciousness is whole, or as your quote puts it "stream of consciousness is that it is highly unified" while its physical correlates (physical processes) are not.

 

[DBT]

Then your claim that consciousness is a single thing when it is clear that what we call consciousness is comprised of many distinct attributes, sensory information: vision, hearing, etc, emotions, thoughts etc, including unconscious processing;


''Consciousness, as William James pointed out, is not a thing, but a process or stream that is changing on a time scale of fractions of seconds (1). As he emphasized, a fundamental aspect of the stream of consciousness is that it is highly unified or integrated. Integration is a property shared by every conscious experience irrespective of its specific content: Each conscious state comprises a single "scene" that cannot be decomposed into independent components (5). Integration is best appreciated by considering the impossibility of conceiving of a conscious scene that is not integrated, that is, one which is not experienced from a single point of view. A striking demonstration is given by split-brain patients performing a spatial memory task in which two independent sequences of visuospatial positions were presented, one to the left and one to the right hemisphere. In these patients, each hemisphere perceived a separate, simple visual problem and the subjects were able to solve the double task well. Normal subjects could not treat the two independent visual sequences as independent, parallel tasks. Instead, they combined the visual information into a single conscious scene and into a single, large problem that was much more difficult to solve.''

I am quite surprised that you would post this quote because the writer seems to have misused "process" and goes on to explain how the consciousness "cannot be decomposed". From the quote you posted, "Each conscious state comprises a single 'scene' that cannot be decomposed into independent components" consciousness is something that exists as a whole. The stream of consciousness is whole, or as your quote puts it "stream of consciousness is that it is highly unified" while its physical correlates (physical processes) are not.

It's just a matter of semantics and interpretation. Each reader interprets the text according to their own point of view. Wording can be problematic because you can't convey all the information you had in mind within a few sentences or paragraphs.

My point was that the word consciousness refers to a process that has many features and attributes, not all operating at once, some of which may deteriorate or be lost altogether, hence consciousness is not a single indivisible thing....parts of it may be lost.

 

[Juma]

I don't agree.

I think a lot can happen below the level of awareness.

Thoughts can just arise from nowhere. They are of course not coming from nowhere but are generated in some way by the brain.

But thoughts can also be controlled and directed towards some end. We punish people more severely for premeditated murder.

There is a measure of voluntary control.

Just as there is a measure of voluntary control of movement.

But if thoughts are generated by the brain, and brains follow the laws of physics, then don't our thoughts also follow the laws of physics and not some other volition? [The good news is that the laws of physics have certain degrees of real freedom, so our thoughts would then also be partly free (obviously because I can't choose between choices/thoughts that are not generated by my brain, but I choose between what is physically generated and presented by my brain)]

I would much more surprised if there was creatures with split conciousnesses... there evolutionary value is very limited.

But a single stresm of conciousness doesnt contradict that the conciousness consists of many parts.

 

[untermensche]

You have not made any clarification.

Yes, the tree we experience is a representation.

But consciousness is being aware of the representation, not the representation.

The representation is one thing. The awareness of the representation is something else entirely.

That which is aware of the representation of the tree is also that which is aware of all things.

Consciousness is not tied to the representation of the tree in any way. The representation of the tree is just one of many things it can be aware of.

Consciousness is not any kind of representation itself. It is the awareness, the experiencing of representations.

Consciousness is not a single thing, it is composed of many features and attributes. If you lose your sight, shut your eyes or whatever, you may still still conscious of the tree through your sense of touch, smell or hearing, the tree is being represented other consciously aware sensory forms, tactile imagery, odour, etc.

Consciousness is a single entity.

That which is aware of the tree is also that which is aware of thoughts, that which aware of the bodies position.

The same thing aware of all things.

Consciousness. A single entity.

No wonder you are having so much trouble.

You think the representations created by the brain and that which is aware of the representations are the same thing.

One could not be more lost.

Sorry, but you don't have a clue. That is the sad fact of it.

Try to separate being aware of a tree from what you are seeing: the tree. You cannot. What you are saying is utter nonsense.

Then your claim that consciousness is a single thing when it is clear that what we call consciousness is comprised of many distinct attributes, sensory information: vision, hearing, etc, emotions, thoughts etc, including unconscious processing;

You are so lost I don't know if I can help you.

For there to be experience TWO things are required. There must be that which experiences and there must be the things it experiences.

The thing that experiences the representation of the tree is not the representation of the tree. They are two distinct things.

No wonder you have had so much trouble.

You think that which experiences the representation of the tree is the same thing as the representation.

It is so absurd it is laughable.

It is the same thing (consciousness) that experiences all things.

If something is experienced then it was experienced by consciousness, a singular entity. It is not one consciousness experiencing the tree and another the grass and another experiencing the cool breeze. It is the same singular consciousness experiencing all things.

 

[fromderinside]

Just because thinking needs things to think about does not make that which experiences the thoughts the same thing as the thoughts themselves.

The thoughts are one thing.

The awareness of them another.

If there are no thoughts the awareness is still there.

It just isn't aware of any thoughts, but could be aware of other things.

Did you try the experiment I suggested? If so maybe you can give a report?